Breakfast

Kitchenette

This is the kitchenette in our basement. My wife and I used this for a year while the main floor was being remodeled. Now it serves me breakfast, snacks, and popcorn in the evenings for my wife. We picked up the microwave at Fred Meyers a couple of years ago for something like $100. I bought the toaster from Amazon for $25 three years ago. The food scale has been around forever. You can buy something similar from Amazon for $25. The glass pitcher to the right of the sink is an old hot pot that quit working. I use it to refill my coffee maker and our hot water pot. Next to the pitcher is a hot air popcorn popper. I have no idea how old it is.

At the other end of the counter is our first refrigerator we bought sometime in the late 1980s, 86 maybe? It's still going strong.

What else is on the counter?

• bottle of ginger ale for when I am feeling poorly. Pour a couple-three ounces in a cup and fill it with hot water. Good for what ails thee.
• Small bottle of Dawn dish soap that gets used like once a week.
• Scrubber sponge and brush for cleaning.
• Coffee cup used to support popcorn bowl so the popper doesn't spew popcorn hither and yon.

The coffee maker is not here because there just isn't enough power or room for it. It's around the corner in the workroom, which means I get another few dozen steps in every day just going to get coffee.

Breakfast

This is my typical breakfast. I have this more days than not. 620 Calories. Costs $4 and I can prepare it in five minutes in my kitchen. I mix two eggs with a splash of milk in a Corning Ware bowl and microwave for two minutes. The precooked bacon gets 15 seconds in the microwave. The red on the eggs is Heinz Ketchup.

Breakfast				Total	4.04
Item	Package Price	Items/Ounces per package	Cost per item	Items/Ounces per serving	Cost per serving
Bacon	14.79	50	0.30	2.0	0.59
Butter	3.99	8	0.50	0.1	0.05
Catsup	4.99	32	0.16	0.2	0.03
Coffee	43.98	100	0.44	2.0	0.88
Eggs	6.89	12	0.57	2.0	1.15
Mandarin Oranges	5.49	48	0.11	4.0	0.46
Milk	4.02	64	0.06	6.0	0.38
Toast	8.00	16	0.50	1.0	0.50

The Corning Ware gets very hot in the microwave. This has the advantage of keeping your food hot for a bit. Microwave safe dishes that don't get hot start sucking the heat out of your food as soon as it starts getting warm.

Update a few minutes later fixed error in spreadsheet.

Farm Life

An Aberdine bull

Joseph Moore has a good post about farm life:

Snakes. Update.

Reefers

They Tried to Kill Swift’s Fridge Car — and Created a Monster Instead
Ewan Hargreaves

Swift and Armour, boy, those names are a blast from the past. I haven't come across them in a coon's age, but evidently they are still in business. Swift was purchased by Brazilian company JBS in 2007 and continues to operate. Armour has become Smithfield Foods.

Reefer Rail Car

I vaguely remember having a book about trains when I was a kid. It had pictures of various kinds of railroad cars, like boxcars and reefers, and they were loading ice into the reefer. I'm old, but I don't think I'm that old. Turns out the last ice cooled reefers were built in 1957, and the first mechanical refrigerated railcars were built in 1958.

Icing Reefers

Google gave me some numbers about railroads in North America. 

There are:

• 28,000 locomotives
• 1.6 million freight railroad cars, including:
• 570,000 covered hoppers
• 439,000 tank cars
• 208,000 flat cars
• 195,000 gondolas
• 104,000 box cars.

However, there are only 8,000 to 10,000 reefers.

Mechanical refrigeration (Thermo King) was adapted to long haul trucks in the late 1930's, just in time for WW2.

1965 DIVCO Milk Truck

Remember these old milk trucks? I got a look at one once. They had a weird refrigeration system. They had big blocks (tanks?) lining the freight compartment. These blocks were hooked up at night, chilled all night long, and then kept the truck cool all the following day. DIVCO stands for Detroit Industrial Vehicle COmpany.

Trichinosis

Pork chops in a skillet. (Elena Veselova/Shutterstock)

I've always stuck to pork that is well done, but I've always kind of wondered about trichinosis. I've made a couple of inquiries over the years, but I never got any kind of a helpful answer. Now we've got a story in Willamette Week that explains the current situation. Seems trichinosis has been pretty much eradicated from the farmed pork supply. It still exists in wild animals, so you want to careful about eating that bear you just shot.

Koloblok

Koloblok

Kolobok is the main character of an East Slavic fairy-tale with the same name, represented as a small yellow spherical bread-like being. The story is often called "Little Round Bun" and sometimes "The Runaway Bun." - Wikipedia

Mmmmm, bread.

Illustration of Kolobok from the 1913 A. Medvedev Russian edition

Bon Appétit, Your Majesty - Netflix Series

Bon Appétit, Your Majesty | Official Trailer | Netflix [ENG SUB]
Netflix K-Content

Silly Korean historical drama / romance. Modern day woman has just won a prestigious cooking competition and is flying home to Korea. She opens an ancient book she is carrying, some of the characters on the page start magically glowing and presto! She magically gets transported back a thousand years in time to the Joseon Dynasty.

Because this is TV, she escapes being executed (happens in every episode I think) and ends up running the kitchen in the king's palace. Meanwhile, the king is writing the book that she was carrying.

Stand out element of this show is what happens to people when they taste our girl's concoctions. It is like a psychedelic experience and their faces glow with rapture. There have been times when I have tasted foods that were exceptional. I enjoyed them, but seeking out these flavors has never been a high priority with me. I can see that for some people it could become a bit of an obsession. I mean witness all the cook books and all the cooking shows. Some people are really into this fancy food thing. Kind of like some people are into football, cars, or opera. People are just weird, man.

Have you ever tasted something that reminded you of a taste from childhood? That has happened to me on occasion and even now it influences my food selection. For instance, tuna fish. My wife fixes hers with Miracle Whip and celery, I fix mine with mayonnaise and sweet relish. I put a dash of catsup on my scrambled eggs. I can eat tuna or eggs prepared other ways, but it just isn't the same.

12 episodes 90 minutes each.

Cast

• Im Yoon-ah plays Yeon Ji-young. A talented, assertive chef from the modern era who is transported to the Joseon Dynasty. 
• Lee Chae-min plays King Yi Heon. The young, charismatic but tyrannical King of Joseon, known for his discerning taste. 
• Kang Han-na plays Kang Mok-joo. A passionate woman who is a long-term concubine in the King's court. (Villain)
• Choi Gwi-hwa plays Prince Jesan. A powerful and influential figure within the royal family.  (Villain)
• Seo Yi-Sook plays Queen Dowager Inju. The powerful Queen Dowager of the Joseon Dynasty. 
• Oh Eui-Sik plays Im Song-jae. The King's cunning Chief State Councilor, who forms an alliance with Ji-young. 
• Park Young-woon plays Su-hyeok. 
• Yoon Seo-Ah plays Seo Gil-geum (our girl's best bud).

Pics

Reuben

New mural by Banksy

MIKOYAN MiG-27 Bahadur

Indian on the King Cruise 2025 at Louwman's, Raamsdonksveer

1978 Mom walking with her family in Salisbury, Rhodesia, carrying an Uzi

Peaches

The Presidents of the United States of America - Peaches (Official HD Music Video)
The Presidents of the United States of America

We've been eating peaches lately, and this song came on the radio the other day. Peaches are tricky. They aren't ripe when we bring them home from the store, so we let them sit on the counter for a couple of days, but only a couple, and then you have to gobble them up because once they become ripe they turn very quickly. And how many peaches can you eat in a day? One a day is plenty for me. Maybe two.

Entrpreneurs

Vendors wait for customers next to the boot of their car, stuffed with homemade crisps and bread, in Havana, Cuba. [Jorge Luis Banos/AP Photo]

Birria de Res en Caldo

Went to Amelia's Mexican restaurant for dinner on the other day. I usually order enchiladas or chile relleno but this time I got the Saturday Special - Birria de Res en Caldo - and it was great. It shows up as a large bowl of a thick broth, but lurking below the surface were several large chunks of beef. They had been cooking for a while, so they came apart easily. I wasn't able to finish it, so I took the leftovers home and got another full meal out it. This might be my new favorite dish. Too bad it's only available on Saturday.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

Muppet Songs: Marvin Suggs - We Have No Bananas
Muppet Songs

Stolen entire from According to Hoyt. 

The Banana Index by Sarah A. Hoyt

Ladies and gentlemen, by the one index that has proven reliable over my lifetime, socialism in the United States is receding. Not on the way out, precisely, but promising to go down instead of up. The index is a little forward-looking, you see.

What is this magical indicator? Well, the abundance and price of bananas.

No, wait, I haven’t completely lost my mind, and I do understand that it makes absolutely no sense, but–

The origin of this is a joke. Not a particularly wonderful joke but somewhat funny at least.

Back in 1978 there was a joke about a place in West Germany where East Germany was so close that two kids could see each other through their bedroom windows. And the West German kid regularly taunted the Eastern kid with what he had, toys, and games, and one day bananas.

Well, the Eastern kid’s father had given him the ultimate answer. “I don’t have bananas, but I have socialism.”

To which the Western kid answered, “Socialism drives out bananas.”

Well….

In Portugal through the variations of politics, we found out that for some reason when a more leftwing government was in power bananas became rarer and those that showed up were smaller, spotty, and went up in price.

Take in account that there are things that can’t possibly be linked that seem to be linked in statistical occurrence. For instance, people who eat cheese have lower all-cause mortality. This makes no sense whatsoever. And yet it occurs. There’s a whole boatload of these so called spurious correlations.

Well…. For some reason socialism goes up and banana availability and affordability goes down.

I noticed the week after the election that bananas which in my area had been trifling with 80c a pound were back down at 40c. Since then they’ve bounced between 40c and 50c, which is what they were in the eighties. And the quality is pretty good.

Of course, bananas are a forward looking index, but the prognosis for falling socialism and rising availability and affordability of bananas is good.

Have yourself a banana split and hope for the best.

Loot

Assumption Abbey Fruitcake

A couple of weeks ago someone in the family was soliciting Christmas wish lists. I usually have a hard time with such requests, being as I don't need anything, or I want something unobtainable, like a rocketship. I don't know why but this year I didn't have a problem, fruitcake was at the top of my list, and my family delivered. It's delicious. Nobody else in my family likes them, or maybe they've never had the opportunity to try one. Am I willing to share? Hmmm. I dunno, maybe no one will ask for a piece. Kind of a problem since I am trying to lose weight, but if I hold it down to one slice a week I should be okay.

These cakes are made in the Ozark mountains in southern Missouri. The monks have a page about their operation but it is a bit spare. Looking for more info, I found a wonderful story on Feast. Therein the author mentions one Jean-Pierre Augé who:

"was teaching cooking classes in St. Louis and working as the chef for Mark Twain Bank."

Mark Twain Bank

Why does a bank need a chef? And where did they get the name? Did Mark Twain eventually become a banker? What the heck? Turns out the Mark Twain Bank operated from 1976 to 1997 when it merged with a bigger bank. Near as I can tell there is no real connection to Mark Twain the man.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

A little banana history lesson, stolen entire from Joe Pastry.

The Banana as Post Colonial Neo-Imperialistic Metaphor

The primary port of entry for bananas coming into the US from Central and South America in New Orleans. Why? Because New Orleans is at the mouth of the Mississippi River, which is a terrific distribution point if you’re selling bananas to consumers in the American interior. No wonder then that the fabled (and infamous) United Fruit Company was headquartered in New Orleans from 1933 to 1985.

Now, mention the United Fruit Company to anyone with much knowledge of Central American history, and they’ll either a.) engage you in a lively discussion on the socioeconomics of fruit growing in Latin America, or b.) launch into a tirade about American economic imperialism. The United Fruit Company was that sort of outfit. One of the first major economic powers — and it was a power, not just a company — to exploit the agricultural resources of Central America, it polarizes people in the same way Cecil Rhodes polarizes scholars of African history. Either Rhodes was a visionary modernizer who brought infrastructure, jobs and growth to underdeveloped territories, or he was a vainglorious, racist exploiter of virgin lands and peoples. It all depends on how you feel about the relative blessings of modernity, and/or which side of the great Western cultural/political divide you happen to stand on.

The United Fruit Company was founded in 1899. Yet what that “founding” actually represented was a great merging of various banana interests that had been thriving in Central America and the Caribbean since the 1870’s. At its height, the United Fruit Company’s land holdings sprawled over huge swathes of Cost Rica, Panama, Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Jamaica (it was known to many as el pulpo, “the octopus”). Yet the country that UFC is most frequently associated with is Guatemala. Guatemala was responsible for producing at least 25% of UFC’s banana crop at the turn of the century. Conversely, UFC was responsible for a gigantic portion of Guatemala’s fledgling economy. It had a hand in virtually everything that happened in Guatemala, from the building of roads, schools and hospitals right up to foreign policy. UFC even delivered Guatemala’s mail. When, in 1944, “spiritual socialist” Juan Arevalo was elected president following the ouster of dictator (and UFC puppet) Jorge Ubico, UFC was displeased to say the least. They lobbied heavily in Washington for American intervention, especially when Arevalo’s successor, Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, threatened to nationalize UFC’s plantations and strategically align Guatemala with the Soviets. By that time Eisenhower and the CIA were only too happy to oblige, and in 1954 toppled the Guatemalan government via covert action.

Yet even then, the writing was on the wall for UFC as a power player in Central America. As the economies it helped to found grew and diversified, it held less and less sway over what went on within them. Today UFC is just another large multinational known as Chiquita Brands International. Where do you come down on an enterprise like the United Fruit Company? Kinda hard to say. On the one hand you have monopoly, political repression and economic exploitation. On the other commerce, transportation, education and healthcare. I dunno, you be da judge.

Oh, and what do you call a small, underdeveloped, politically unstable country whose masters are foreign agricultral and/or business interests? Why, a Banana Republic, of course.

Missouri Cheese Cave

Cheese stored underground in a former limestone mine, Missouri

Rumor has it that the government has 1.4 billion pounds of cheese stored in these caves under Springfield, Missouri. The Farm link Project has a page about this as does Wikipedia.

One pound of cheese can provide enough calories to sustain one person for one day, so 1.4 billion pounds is enough to sustain the entire country for like four days.

The natural temperature of the cave is 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but refrigeration brings the temperature down to 36 degrees. I wonder what the electric bill is.

It would be a good thing to have all that cheese in case of famine, but 70% of the world's population is lactose intolerant. 

It sounds like a government project run amuck, but this is small potatoes compared to some.

Via a meme on Bustednuckles

Gingerbread City

Gingerbread City, Bergen, Norway

There is also one in London, England and another in New York City.

Sauerkraut

Making Sauerkraut

IAman reports:

I would like to try to make sauerkraut at home. Hence I need a crock.  I've been reading Captain Cooks biography and it impressed me on the importance of Kraut on a extended sea voyage (over 30 days the human body loses the anti-scorbutic levels of vitamin C) .  Through fermentation, it seems more vitamin C is produced than naturally occurs in green cabbage. (correct me if I am wrong)  Though land-locked  I still like kraut with sausage and apples,  also on sandwiches.   Yes I can buy kraut at Walmart for 9 cents a ounce, $1.44 lb, which is what cabbage costs, but why do that when I can chop, ferment and watch it bubble for a week?  I have a plastic container,  but would rather use a non-reactive stoneware,  but buying one from Ace hardware at $65 for an experiment goes against my frugal instincts.

From Wikipedia:

It is a high source of vitamins C and K; the fermentation process increases the bioavailability of nutrients rendering sauerkraut even more nutritious than the original cabbage.

Fat

The $100 Billion Dollar Ingredient making your Food Toxic
What I've Learned

If you like traditional foods like meat and bread, like me, you are liable to find this guy's argument persuasive. If you are in tune with the noise that emanates from social media you are going to think he's a crank.

The biggest hole I found in his argument is the sudden rise of heart disease. Me, I wonder if heart disease was even a thing back in the 19th century. 'What killed Jim? Oh, I dunno, he got old and died.'

Then there is what looks like a small differences in life spans. But I do like the idea that vegetable oil is causing obesity.

I have no idea whether any of the chemistry he mentions is valid, but bio-chemistry is not my strong suit.

World War 2 Ice Cream of the US NAVY

Just imagine: a barge full of ice cream.

Frying Pan Story

MINERAL B Carbon Steel Fry Pan

Uniberp reports:

Back from Germany. Visited several cities, Nazi sites and Gothic cathedrals. Germans are really good at what they do and have built extremely well-functioning transportation, housing and food. Of course they've had 2000 years to get there, with not a few missteps along the way. They are also quite quiet and unsmiling. I think they are up to something.

 

Years ago I found a frypan at a WIlliams Sonoma store as a closeout. It was basic steel (not cast iron), heavy, and cheap and the reason it was a closeout is because at that time companies were just coming out with designer stainless clad cookware in shiny modern designs. Turns out all that stuff failed after a few years and the ugly little too heavy frypan soldiered on. It was the best thing for making real omelettes. It even works great camping.

So for the second house I wanted another one but could never find another in stores. In a housewares store in Koblenz I spied this and knew I had found the piece I sought:

MINERAL B Carbon Steel Fry Pan 

Never saw one before. I had seen them online but I have been fooled before. Until I held it I was not going to risk disappointment again. I was tempted to buy it on the spot but customs would have charged me and like I said, it is heavy to travel with.

So I bought one when I got back. Highly recommended for anybody who enjoys cooking their own food. Steel is the difference. Not iron. And it has a longer handle.

Texas Dairy Farm Fire

Seems like there have been an awful lot of fires at food processing plants lately. I can't tell if there really has been a significant increase in the number of incidents or whether our communications channels have improved so much that we are hearing about them more often. Or maybe conspiracy theories sell, so more people are writing reports about these kind of incidents.

I suspect that food processing, like grocery stores, run on very thin margins, so some operators might be inclined to skimp on safety items like fire prevention. I mean, nobody's going to care very much if a bunch of animals get killed, they were all going to be killed anyway.

South Fork Dairy, Dimmitt, Texas

But this dairy farm fire that Bayou Renaissance Man reports on is pretty phenomenal: 18,000 dairy cattle killed in a barn fire. How can you get that many cattle in one barn? It must be pretty big barn. It is. Using Google Maps distance measuring feature I find that the barn is 800 feet by 2,400 feet. This thing is half a mile long and covers 44 acres.

South Fork Dairy - West Texas Farmland

What's even weirder (from my point of view) is that it is all by its lonesome in the midst of a huge expanse of agricultural fields. Dimmitt, Texas must be a very strange place.

18,000 cattle. Butchered you could get about 500 pounds of meat from each animal. At a half pound of meat per day, that would be enough to feed everyone in Dimmitt for a dozen years. Or enough to make 36 million quarter pounders.